Search form

Main Menu

You are here

Expert warns Nintendo games may cause seizures in photosensitive children

5May2004

A leading experton photosensitive epilepsy has discovered that four Nintendo computergames contain flashing repetitive light sequences which may triggerepileptic seizures in photosensitive children.

Professor Graham Harding, former director of the Neurosciences Research Institute at Aston University,is now calling for warnings to be printed on the packaging of thesegames and for safety guidelines to be brought in to the video gameindustry similar to those used in the broadcasting industry.

Thegames 'Mega Man X', 'Super Mario Sunshine', 'Metroid Prime' and 'MarioKart: Double Dash' all contain light patterns which could cause aseizure in approximately one in 4,000 people but are still on sale inBritain and throughout the world. People aged between seven and twentyare five times more at risk than the rest of the population, and threequarters of patients will remain photosensitive for life.

Professor Harding explained:

'Ifa person has photosensitive epilepsy, which is diagnosed after oneseizure, they need to avoid any flickering light situation such asdiscotheques and certain theme park rides. While watching television orplaying video games they must sit more than two metres away from thescreen in a well lit room and should not approach the set.

'Ifpeople take these precautions and still experience seizures thenmedication may be administered. Sudden death from epilepsy is a knownfact and cannot be ruled out, but it has not yet occurred in the caseof a patient suffering from photosensitive epilepsy to my knowledge.'

Arecent BBC Three documentary ‘Outrageous Fortunes' claimed to haveevidence that Nintendo knew that some of its games could triggerseizures in some children and chose not to remove the provocativesections from the games, a claim that Nintendo has described as"ridiculous".